Wednesday, 28 February 2018

He was born in Mariampol (Marijampolė),
Lithuania.He studied in religious
elementary schools and for a time with Dr. Y. Klatskin.He graduated from a Russian state high school
in Mariampol and studied medicine at Königsberg University.He was a cofounder of the academic
association named for Theodor Herzl.At
the time of WWI, he returned to Mariampol.From 1917 until the end of WWI, he was working in a number of hospitals
in Vilna.He was mobilized in 1919 by
the Lithuanians opposed to the Poles and Russians.In 1924 he wrote his doctoral thesis and
received the title of doctor from Würzburg University.He directed the courses for Hebrew teachers
(1924-1925) run by Tarbut in Kovno, and also at this time he contributed to Di idishe shtime (The Jewish voice) and Had lita (Echo of Lithuania) in
Kovno.Over the years 1925-1930, he was
director of studies, teacher, and doctor at the Riga Hebrew high school.In 1931 he was a member of the editorial
board of Di idishe shtime and Had lita (later, Netivot [Pathways]), and he also wrote for Lithuanian
newspapers.With the invasion of the
Soviets (1940-1941), his house became a center of Kovno Jewish leaders.When the Germans marched into Kovno, he was
appointed leader of the social and medical division of the ghetto, and after
the great Aktion (the annihilation of 12,000 Jews), he organized a united
secret Zionist committee in the underground ghetto.With the liquidation of the Kovno ghetto, he
was deported to Dachau, and from there in 1945 he was liberated by the Americans.In 1946 he made aliya to the land of
Israel.From 1947 he worked as a doctor
in Tel Aviv’s municipal schools.He
published the work “Tatspiyot refuot psikhologiyot betekufat hashoa” (Observations
of medical psychology in the era of the Holocaust) in the annual yearbook of the
Ḥerut (Freedom)
party.He translated Dr. M. Dukhovni’s “Meḥkar
betoldot haam haivri beerets yisrael bamea haḥamishit lesfh”n” (Study of the
history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel in the fifth century, C.E.)
into Hebrew.He wrote over 400 medical
articles.He died in Tel Aviv.

He was born in Sasov (Sasów), Galicia.He studied in religious elementary school and
yeshiva.He was a leading member of the “Tseire
Agudat Yisrael” (Agudat Yisrael youth) in his home city.In 1928 he began publishing in Lemberger morgen (Lemberg morning), and he
continued writing for it until WWII.His
articles would also be republished in other newspapers.He was murdered in the Złoczówghetto together with other Sasów Jews.

He was born in Lyady (?), and he
later lived in Vitebsk, Byelorussia.He
was an external student in high school and a fervent Labor Zionist.He led a struggle against the community
leaders of his town for permission to hold a Labor Zionist lecture in a small synagogue.He worked by filthy channels and lugged
bricks and lime in the construction of buildings.He moved to Argentina and worked there for
various householders as an assistant house-painter and lived a very difficult
life.He possessed no more than his work
clothes and would attend meetings in them and give Labor Zionist speeches.He later became the leader of the theorists
of Labor Zionism in Argentina.He wrote
political articles for the periodical Broyt
un erd (Bread and soil), published 1909-1910.In 1910 he was arrested in Buenos Aires.After two months in jail, he was deported
from the country.He went on to live in
Soviet Russia.

He was born in Rovno, Volhynia.He studied law and economics at the
Universities of Kiev and Moscow, where he received his doctoral degree.He served in the Russian army, and during WWI
he fought on the East Prussian front.Afterward he was living in Russia.In 1919 he returned to Poland and settled in Lodz, where he practiced
law and was in the leadership of the Zionist Revisionist Party of Poland.He published articles on a variety of topics
in: Nayer folksblat (New people’s
newspaper) in Lodz; Dos naye leben
(The new life) in Bialystok; and Dos folk
(The people) and Frimorgn (Morning)
in Riga; among other serials.His
memoirs about Jewish lawyers in Russia of the past—published in Nayer folksblat—were republished in the
Yiddish press in various countries.When
the Germans occupied Lodz, Sarne fled to the Soviet-held zone of Poland, was subsequently
arrested by the Soviet authorities, and spent four years in Soviet camps.In 1946 he returned to Lodz and took a
leading role in the illegal aliya to
the land of Israel for the Revisionist Party.From that point on, there has been no further biographical information
about him available.

He was born in Sandomierz,
Kielce district,
Poland.Until WWII he was active in
Zionist youth organizations.Over the
years 1940-1945, he survived various Nazi death camps and ghettos, such as the “24th”
extermination camp in Lemberg.He later
lived in Cracow, Warsaw, Rovno, and Paris.He was the author of: In di orems
fun toyt (In the arms of death), stories and poems of Jewish resistance
against the Nazis in the ghettos of Poland and in the woods (Paris, 1946), 225
pp., with a preface by the author and illustrations by A. Vayts—included in
this book were the songs, “Nekome” (Revenge), “Partizaner-lid” (Partisan song),
“Ikh zukh a tikn” (I’m looking for redress), and “Vu zayt ir geven?” (Where
were you?), which were sung in the ghettos and camps of Poland; Shturem-geviksn (Storm plants) (Tel
Aviv, 1958), 485 pp.—“This book,” noted Dr. B. Orenshteyn, “contains a great number
of dramatic episodes of physical and spiritual struggle, which WWII brought
about.”

He was born in Vilna.He was a graduate of the Vilna Jewish senior
high school.From his earliest years, he
demonstrated a talent for writing.Together with Sh. Reznik, he co-edited the student organ of his high
school, Undzer bleter (Our little
newspaper), in 1924.He translated for
the choir of his high school a series of songs and opera arias from Russian and
German, some of which were published in: “Repertuar fun y. gershteyns khor in
vilne” (Repertoire of Y. Gershteyn’s choir in Vilna), in Gershteyn, Lider fun a gemishtn khor (Songs of a
mixed choir), first collection (Vilna, 1937), 12 pp. + 24 pp.; and in the
concert programs of the choir.Only a
few of his own original songs were published in Vilner tog (Vilna day) (August 7, 1936).He also translated into Yiddish the comic opera by Robert
Planquette: Di korneviler glokn (The
Corneville bells [original: Cloches de Corneville]); it was staged by the Vilna Jewish Opera
Ensemble on October 18, 1936.Sarabski
worked for a short period of time as a proofreader at Vilner tog.At some point, he
fled to Soviet Russia, where he was arrested and exiled.In 1936 he was already no longer among the
living, though exactly when and where he died remain unknown.

His sister ROKHL was a teacher in the Vilna ghetto schools;
she was later deported to Lithuanian concentration camps.She was the author of poems.In Sh. Katsherginski’s Lider fun di getos un lagern(Songs from the ghettos and camps) (New York, 1948), some
of her poems may be found: “Dinaverker yidn” (Jews in Dinaverk) and “Ven s’kumt
der friling” (When spring arrives) (pp. 262-63).She was shot two days before liberation when
she attempted to escape from the camp.Her mother and another sister Khyene were murdered in 1941 in Ponar.

He was born in Leove (Leova),
southern Bessarabia.He descended from
generations of tailors, but his father, Mortkhe Saktsier, who was a Jewish
community leader and vice-mayor of the town, sent him to religious elementary
school, a state public school, and a public high school as well.In the mid-1920s he came to Bucharest, and in
1928 he studied in the Vienna pedagogical seminary; a year later he was living
in Paris where he worked in a factory, before returning to Romania in
1931.Until 1940 he lived in
Bucharest.In late 1936 he departed for
the Soviet Union, where he studied and worked in construction on the Moscow
subway system.At the time of 1936-1937
show trials, he was arrested and exiled to the gulag.Freed in 1940, he returned to Bessarabia and
took part in the creation of the Yiddish state theater in Belz, for which he
served as literary director.In 1941
when the forces of Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, he was evacuated with the
theater to Uzbekistan.He was mobilized
into the Red Army and assigned to a construction battalion for one year.He later lived in Alma-Ata and Samarkand,
where he was active as a writer.In 1947
he returned to Bessarabia and until he was arrested again, he lived in Kishinev
and later Czernowitz, where he was involved in Jewish cultural work and the
Yiddish theater.In 1948 he was
convicted of “Jewish nationalism” and sentenced in 1949 to deportation to
Siberian labor camps for ten years.In
1955 (after Stalin’s death), he returned from exile rehabilitated, lived
briefly in Moscow, and then settled in Kishinev, where he returned to literary
and theatrical work.In 1972 he made
aliya to Israel.His literary activities
began with poems in the journal Yidish
(Yiddish) in Bucharest (1928) and other Yiddish periodicals in Romania.He was a member of the young Yiddish poets
group, which gathered about the journal Shoybn
(Glass panes) in Czernowitz (1935-1936), edited by A. Shteynbarg, in which he
published poetry and elegies. He later
contributed poems, notes, and stories to: Di
vokh (The week) and Inzl (Island)
in Bucharest; Tshernovitser bleter
(Czernowitz pages) and Oyfgang
(Arise), among others, in Romania; Literarishe
bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw; and in Yiddish publications out of
Soviet Russia.In 1939, in the anthology
Byalistoker lebn (Bialystok life), he
published the poem “Bay velkhe taykhn” (By which rivers), and in the journal Sovetish (Soviet) and the almanac Heymland (Homeland) in Moscow, and in Ikuf-bleter (Pages from IKUF [Jewish
Cultural Association]) in Bucharest; among others.From 1953 he was writing for: Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings) and Folksshtime (Voice of the people) in
Warsaw; Yidish kultur (Jewish
culture), Zamlungen (Collections),
and Morgn-frayhayt (Morning freedom)
in New York; and Fray yisroel (Free
Israel) in Tel Aviv; among others.He
became a regular contributor to Sovetish
heymland (Soviet homeland) in Moscow.In Israel, he placed work in: Di
goldene keyt (The golden chain), Bay zikh
(On one’s own), Yisroel-shtime (Voice
of Israel), Folksblat (People’s
newspaper), Letste nayes (Latest
news), and Yidish-velt (Yiddish
world).He devoted many years to writing
plays, including: “Di sonim af tsu lehakhes” (Enemies out of spite) (1945); “Lakhn
iz gezunt” (Laughter is healthy) (1947); and others.His musical comedies: In a guter sho (At a good time) (1959), a comedy in two acts, which
was staged in Yiddish theaters in Romania by the troupe of Sidi Tal; Abi men zet zikh (As long as it can be
seen) (1963); and Gliklekhe bagegenishn
(Happy encounters).He also composed
poetry, one-act plays, sketches, and folk images, where were produced by Yiddish
stage ensembles in the Soviet Union.In
book form: Derfar, lid un elegye
(Therefore, a poem and elegy) (Bucharest, 1936), 96 pp.; Mit farbotenem blayer (With a forbidden pencil), a poetry
collection (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1977), 200 pp.; Der shayter baym veg (The bonfire by the road) (Tel Aviv: Nay lebn,
1978), 230 pp.; Toybn af antene
(Pigeons on the antenna) (Tel Aviv: Leivick farlag, 1982), 224 pp.His novel Yidishe
shnayders (Jewish tailors), about his grandfathers in his hometown of
Leova, was lost in the years of his banishment.“His volume of poetry Derfar,”
wrote Y. Kara, “bore Leivick’s stamp of ethical-social struggles.”“Characteristic of him and his work,” noted
Y. Yanasovitsh, “is the fact that not only the individual experience of the
poet takes place in his poems, but also the experiences of his generation.He is consequently, in a major sense, the
spokesman of his generation.”

Tuesday, 27 February 2018

He was born in Radom, Poland, into an
impoverished family. He studied in
religious elementary school, yeshiva, a Russian public school, and later
through self-study. He was a cofounder
of “Hazemir” (The nightingale), a drama studio, and Jewish folkloric
circles. At the time of WWI he stood
with the Jewish Folkspartey (People’s party) and supported himself by giving
private Hebrew lessons. He published
poems in Hatsfira (The siren) in
Warsaw, and he compiled a Hebrew textbook.
He was a fervent defender of Yiddish.
He published poetry in: Lodzer
tageblat (Lodz daily newspaper), Folksblat
(People’s newspaper), and Lubliner
togblat (Lublin daily newspaper), among others. He contributed as well to Leyb Malakh’s Radomer vokhnblat (Radom weekly
newspaper) (1921), later to: Dos radomer
lebn (The Radom life), Radomer
tsaytung (Radom newspaper), and Meyer Horde’s Radomer-keltser lebn (Radom-Kielce life) (1926-1939), in which he
placed poems, short stories, and articles.
He was murdered by the Nazis together with many other Radom Jews.

He was born in Radom, Poland. He received a Jewish and a general education,
later becoming a bookkeeper. He
cofounded drama circles. He authored
one-act plays, sketches, and humorous pieces, which he staged in Radom and
other towns. He was the correspondent
from Radom to Nayer folksblat (New
people’s newspaper) in Lodz (1923-1939). He published poems and humorous sketches in
Leyb Malakh’s Radomer vokhnblat
(Radom weekly newspaper) in 1921, Radomer
lebn (Radom life), and Radomer-keltser
lebn (Radom-Kielce life), among other serials. He was confined in the Radom ghetto; he later
worked in the ammunitions factory of Radom and to a forced labor camp in Częstochowa. He was murdered by the Nazis in the winter of
1943.

The younger brother of Shoyel and
Yoysef Sokolovski, he was born in Radom, Poland. He studied in religious elementary school and
public school, later becoming a laborer.
Until WWII he was active in the Labor Zionist movement. He was one of the Radom writers who gathered
around the journal Naye vintn (New
winds) (Radom, 1925-1926), and there he published poetry and stories. He also contributed to: Der yunger dor (The younger generation), Fraye yugnt (Free youth), and Arbeter-tsaytung
(Labor newspaper) in Warsaw; and Radomer
lebn (Radom life) and Radomer-keltser
lebn (Radom-Kielce life); among others. He was confined in the Radom ghetto, from
which he was transported to Majdanek and murdered there.

He was born in Vishegrad (Wyszogród),
Plotsk (Płock) region, Poland, into a family
that drew its pedigree back to Rabbi Natan Nata Shpiro, the “Megale amukot”
(Revealer of depths) [1585-1633]. At age
three he was already in religious elementary school; at age five he moved with
his parents to Płock where he studied under his father’s
purview and later in synagogue study hall.
He was studying Talmud with commentaries at age ten, and he soon had gained
fame as a prodigy. His father wanted him
to become a rabbi and stood by him earnestly in the Torah world, but in his
thirst for knowledge about secular things as well, at age eight Sokolov
secretly kept dictionaries and grammars and began to learn foreign
languages. Thanks to a phenomenal
memory, he quickly mastered numerous European languages, and under the
influence of various people close to him, including among them the governor of Płock,
Baron Wrangel, who was acquainted with the Sokolov family, Sokolov’s father and
grandfather finally allowed the young Sokolov to take private lessons with
professors (tutors) from the Płock high school, when he was free from his
synagogue studies. He thus went through
the high school course of study and was always thankful thereafter to his
teachers, the Polish professors Maslawski, Debicki, and Schultz, who taught him
Latin, Greek, and history. His teachers
wanted him to prepare himself for subsequent examinations for higher education. This alarmed his father and grandfather, and
they decided that there was no time to lose to have him sent away from this
heresy-laden Płock. So he left Płock and
began going from one rebbe to another, wrote his own Torah novellae, and was
exhaustive with learning. At the same
time he was reading secular books. When
he returned to Płock, he and his friends began to publish a handwritten
newspaper, Hashoshana (The rose), in
which he placed poems and translations from Schiller and Shakespeare. At that time as well, he began sending in
correspondence pieces to the Hebrew-language press, mainly to Hamelits (The advocate). He married a relative at age eighteen, Regine
Segal, an intelligent young woman from Makov (Maków), who encouraged him
greatly in his literary ambitions. For a
certain period of time, he became a wool merchant and to that end traveled to
Bukhara and Kavkaz. In 1874 he debuted
in print with a correspondence piece from Płock in the Galician periodical Ivri anokhi (I am Jewish), published in
Brody. In 1877 he published a
translation of a handbook of geography, Metsuke
erets o yesode yediat hageografiya hativit (The precipices of the earth or basic
information on natural geography) (Warsaw, 1877), 96 pp. He also wrote essays for Hamagid (The preacher), in which he placed (unsigned) his work Letora veleteuda (On Torah and duty),
which appeared over time in installments and raised quite a stir. He published numerous articles in Hakol (The voice) in Königsberg and
therein conducted a lengthy polemic with the first writers of the Jewish
Enlightenment. From Maków he also wrote
in German, in Rohmer’s literary newspaper and in Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums (General newspaper of Jewish
affairs) in Bonn; and in French for Archives
israélites (Jewish records). In 1879
he settled in Warsaw, where he became a regular contributor (later, also
editor) of Hatsfira (The siren),
initially published weekly and later daily.
Through Hatsfira his influence
began with his weekly survey of Jewish life, entitled “Hatsofe levet yisrael”
(Observer of the House of Israel) and later with his daily political notes
entitled “Divre hayamim” (Chronicles).
He also wrote literary critical essays, popular historical and
philosophical treatments, and travel narratives; his feature piece “Mishabat
leshabat” (From Sabbath to Sabbath)—in the style of the informal French
“causerie”—was a huge success with readers.
He also published short novellas and poetry, and he tried as well to
write a long novel from Roman times (Neure
hanesher or Youth of the eagle). As
a supplement for everyone, he published and edited Haasif (The harvest), an annual Hebrew anthology, to which
well-known Jewish scholars, story writers, and poets contributed work—these
anthologies, six in all, encompass from 600 to 1,600 pages annually. Sokolov also published and edited four
volumes of Sefer hashana
(Yearbook). He published the books: Erets ḥemda (Desirable country), a history
and geography of the land of Israel (Warsaw, 1885) 191 pp.; Sinat olam laam olam (Eternal hatred for
the eternal people), on anti-Semitism (Warsaw, 1882), 309 pp.; and Torat sefat anglit (Rules of the English
language), a textbook for English (1882).
He began but did not complete an epic of Jewish life in Poland under the
title “Napolyon min hageto” (Napoleon of the ghetto); twelve or thirteen chapters
of this work were published only after his death.

His
first work in Yiddish was Naye praktishe
methode der englishen shprakhe (New practical method for the English
language), “to master in a short time without any help from a teacher to write
and speak English freely, and a new, very simple system, originally worked out
by N. Sokolov” (Warsaw: A. Tsukerman, 1904), 96 pp.—this work went through
sixteen editions, each with roughly 10,000 copies. Characteristic of his ties to Yiddish at this
time is the foreword to this book, in which he writes: “As for the method of
practical uses to which this may be put for each individual without exception,
educated or uneducated, I use in the explanation and in the translation an easy
Judeo-German, for with a base zhargon
one will be unable to use a living European language to make proper
adjustments, and therefore I stand midway, neither to proper German nor to
common gibberish.” Later, though, when
Warsaw became, thanks to Y. L. Perets, the center of modern Yiddish literature,
Sokolov ceased to think of Yiddish as a “base zhargon” and became a Yiddish writer himself. He soon turned away from his Germanized
gibberish and demonstrated in Yiddish that he was a splendid stylist and
spirited feature writer. His Yiddish
debut (using the name Amitai) actually took place in Perets’s Yudishe biblyotek (Jewish library) 3
(1891), pp. 173-91: “Rabi nakhmen krokhmal, a shmues in vagon” (Rabbi Nachman
Krochmal, a chat on a train)—a treatment in a semi-fictional form with
tendencies toward enlightenment concerning the famed thinker from Żółkiew. A large portion of his essays in Ishim (Personages) were initially
written in Yiddish and then translated into Hebrew, especially the entry for A.
Shlonski. His systematic activities as a
writer in Yiddish began in the years around Der
telegraf (The telegraph), the daily Yiddish newspaper which he founded in
late 1905 in Warsaw after the collapse of Hatsfira. He would on a virtually daily basis publish
articles under various and sundry pseudonyms.
Of these one should tale particular note of his feature “Yidish”
(Yiddish), written as an example of how one ought write Yiddish in connection
with the polemic that was then going on in literary circles around introducing
German words into the Yiddish language. Living
in London in 1906, he also wrote numerous articles for Yudishe velt (Jewish world), the Yiddish supplement to the
well-known weekly The Jewish World,
published by the Westernized, English community leader Lucian Wolf. He later contributed to Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) and Yudishe gazetten (Jewish gazette) in New York, and even later for Haynt (Today) in Warsaw, with articles
entitled “Fun mayn literarishn notits-bukh” (From my literary notebook), as
well as “A serye brif tsu der yidisher froy” (A series of letters to the Jewish
woman). On several occasions he also
came out to defend the Yiddish language against its enemies (he made a
particular impression with his article, “Hip-hip keneged hazhargon” [Opposition
to zhargon] in Hazman [The times]). Only a
small number of his Yiddish journalistic efforts is included in the volume of
his Oysgeveylte shriftn (Selected
writings) (Warsaw: P. Kantorovitsh, 1912), 158 pp. Also, translated into Yiddish—in the daily
newspaper Dos yudishe folk (The
Jewish people) in Warsaw (1919)—are chapters from his English work, History of Zionism (1918). Initially, Sokolov took no side with respect
to the Zionist movement, was close to the Polish Jewish organ Izraelita (Israelite), and warmly
supported (in Hatsfira) emigration to
Argentina. As an opponent of “Ḥibat
tsiyon” (Love of Zion), he was publicly opposed Dr. Pinsker’s Selbstemanzipation (Auto-emancipation) and Herzl’s Der Judenstaat (The state of the Jews),
but later, after the first Zionist Congress in Basel, he became a firm adherent
of Herzl and later (around 1901-1902) he also contributed to the weekly
newspaper Di velt (The world), the
central organ of the World Zionist Organization. Sokolov translated Herzl’s Altneuland (Old-New land) into
Hebrew. When Hatsfira closed its doors, Sokolov settled in Köln, and there he
served as the main administrator of the movement. Around 1907 he helped to found the Hebrew
journal Haolam (The world). Several years later, when Hatsfira was revived, he returned to
Warsaw. When WWI broke out, Sokolov—now
a leader in the Zionist movement—settled in London. Following the announcement of the Balfour
Declaration (1918), he became the ambassador of Zionism to the world, visited
dozens of cities and countries, addressed conferences, gave innumerable
speeches and lectures, and engaged in talks with well-known political leaders
throughout the world. He was chairman of
the Zionist Executive under the presidency of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, and over the
course of four years (1931-1935) he was himself president of the World Zionist
Organization. Even in old age, he
remained president of Zionist Congresses, participated in meetings, and
traveled on distant assignments. On the
literary front, he remained fresh and cheerful until the last day of his
life. Even at the presidium table at
Zionist congresses, he composed one of his life works, Dos hebreishe verterbukh (The Hebrew dictionary). Sokolov died in London. In his memory there was built in the center
of Tel Aviv a two-story house for journalists, “Bet sokolov” (Sokolov
house). In 1956 his remains (and his
wife’s) were transported to the state of Israel and buried with state honors in
Jerusalem on Mount Herzl. The number of
his articles numbers in the thousands, and few of them were published in book
form. Aside from those books cited
above, he published the following works in Hebrew: Sefer hazikaron lesofre yisrael haḥayim itanu kayom (The book of
remembrance for the Jewish writers living as if today), 2 vols., a handbook of
the most important writers in the two halves of the nineteenth century (Warsaw, 1889), 208 pp.; Barukh shpinoza
uzemano (Barukh Spinoza and his times), a historical-philosophical biography
(Paris, 1929), 418 pp.; Tsadik venisgav
(Righteous and sublime), a historical novella about Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller
(Warsaw, 1882), 72 pp.; Toldot sifrut
yisrael (History of Jewish literature); Ishim,
3 vols., essays about personages who excelled in their deeds or literary
writings (Jerusalem: Hasifriya hatsiyonit, 1954), first published by Stybl in
Tel Aviv (1935), 532 pp.; Hatsofe levet yisrael (Jerusalem, 1960/1961), 586 pp. A much smaller portion of his work, written
first in Yiddish, as well as translated from Hebrew, was published in book
form: Naye praktishe methode der
englishen shprakhe (sixteenthe printing: Warsaw, 1904), 94 pp., also
published under the title Lernt aykh
english (Teach yourself English) (Warsaw, 1939), 96 pp.; Di likhtlekh, a gedikht in proze (The
little candles, a poem in prose), written in London (London: Jewish National
Commission for England, 1916), 16 pp.; Idishe
froy (Jewish woman) (London: Zionist Federation, 1917), 22 pp.; Nokhum sokolovs redes in erets-yisroel
(Nokhum Sokolov’s speeches in the land of Israel) (London: Head Office, Jewish
National Fund, 1926/1927), 24 pp.; Oysgeveylte
shriftn, vol. 1 (original work and translations); Vos mir viln,rede gehalten af der tsienistisher
folks-konferents in london(What we want, speech given at the Zionist
public conference in London) (Warsaw: Histadruth Hatseirim, 1916), 29 pp. (this
speech given at a Zionist meeting in London was also published in Yiddish by
the local Zionist Federation); Perzenlekhkeytn
(Personalities), translation of Ishim
from Hebrew by M. Shenderay (Buenos Aires: Central Association of Polish Jews
in Argentina, 1948), 254 pp.; Perzenlekhkeytn
un folk (Personalities and people) (Jerusalem: Hasifriya hatsiyonit, 1966),
401 pp.—a translation of Ishim by L.
Olitski.

As Shloyme Bikl noted:

Sokolov did not sit, as he said of himself, by the waters of
ideological contradiction…. He was not
and did not wish to be an ideological decisor and of course not the ultimate
arbiter. Sokolov also understood the
ideas of his opponents and had an organic aversion to extremist ideas and to
ideological fanaticism, which clogged up the ears [eyes] so they would not see
anything other than their own tears….
Reading Sokolov’s essays, one senses not only his tolerance and
generosity as a writer, but there is also revealed to us Sokolov the man;
Sokolov, the Leyvi-Yitskhok figure of our national renaissance. He was tolerant and full of sympathy not
because he was by nature a weak, sentimental person and wanted to spare himself
alone and to explain this kind of person his ideological sins, but because
there lived within him, as in the legendary Leyvi-Yitskhok image, the organic
law of cosmic harmony, which equalizes the bad with the good.

Arn
Tsaytlin wrote:

Imagine that one poses the question, is there really such a
unique person who was called Nokhum Sokolov.
It would seem that the well-known name was borne by hundreds of
different men. All the Sokolovs would,
though, every day anew, become one person, one Sokolov…. One thing ties all the Sokolovs together: the
strength of their extraordinary, quick, brilliant perception, the strength of
knowledge and the ability to acquire it.
Herzl was a man of the wider world in a natural way. Sokolov mastered the wider world, and without
anyone’s help, with the power of an open mind.
What one learns naturally from others (if one is not for himself alone),
Sokolov learned “for himself” and by himself….
He could write a poem—when he had to or wished to—but he was not nor did
he become a poet. He understood art but
that did not make him an artist. On the
topic of art, even a Sokolov could not demonstrate such wonder as to transcend
understanding, to comprehend something—to become that something. Wonder came to an end here…. The same is true of Sokolov’s Ishim.
Sokolov depicts there well-known personalities whom he knew, describes
their lives and works, his meetings with them, and draws their portraits. It is fascinating. Sokolov’s language, Sokolov’s wisdom,
Sokolov’s amazing memory—all may be found therein. All these sparkle in Sokolov. However, more than we see in his physical
body, we hear—and with great interest—the writer himself. Sokolov’s magnitude as a writer generally was
not in the least reduced because he was not an author of fiction. Great literature is not necessarily
fiction. Sokolov, though, was not only a
writer, for before all else he was Sokolov the person—Sokolov the phenomenon.

Sunday, 25 February 2018

He was born in Konskevolye (Końskowola),
Lublin district, Poland. He studied with
his father in religious elementary school in Warsaw, and later until he was
thirteen years of age with his grandfather in Vishegrad (Wyszogrod)
and until the end of WWI in the Saratshaver.
In 1924 he joined the Hassidic pioneer movement and later was secretary
to the Yabloner Rebbe and traveled with him to the land of Israel. In the Hassidic colony of “Naḥalat Yaakov”
(Inheritance of Jacob), he performed a number of tasks. He left Israel in late 1926, lived for a time
in Paris and Germany, and then returned to Warsaw where he lived until
WWII. He began writing stories about
pious small town life in his father’s (N. L. Vayngot’s) Dos yudishe vort (The Jewish word) (1918-1919), later in Der yud (The Jew), both in Warsaw. In Israel he was a contributor to the Aguda
periodical Kol yisroel (Voice of
Israel), in which he published stories, sketches, and reportage pieces of Hassidic
and pioneer life in Israel. He also
placed work in: Beys-yankev-zhurnal
(Beys Yankev journal) and Yudishe
arbayter-shtime (Voice of Jewish labor) in Lodz; Ortodoksishe yugend-bleter (Orthodox youth pages) in Warsaw; and
the Hebrew-language Menora (Menorah),
Darkhenu (Our way), and Deglanu (Our banner), among others, in
Warsaw. When Dos yudishe togblat (The Jewish daily newspaper) was founded in
Warsaw in 1929, he was one of the principal contributors to the newspaper. During the Nazi occupation, he was confined
in the Warsaw Ghetto, and he worked in a soup kitchen run by the Jewish
literary association and also wrote.
With the Aktion of September 1942, he was taken to the Umschlagplatz (the
collection point in Warsaw for deportation) and sent to Treblinka where he was
murdered. A number of his stories,
sketches, and poems are included in M. Prager’s Antologye fun religyeze lider un dertseylungen (Anthology of religious poems and stories) (New York, 1955),
pp. 313-74. He also published in Hebrew:
Haayara hayehudit bepolin (The
Jewish town in Poland) (Jerusalem, 1958), 112 pp.; Demuyot (Characters) (Jerusalem, 1961), 177 pp.

He was born in Czernowitz,
Bukovina. He studied in religious
elementary school, high school, and university.
He graduated as a lawyer. Over
the years 1914-1918, he served in the Austrian army. He lived in Vienna (1919-1938); he moved to
London in 1938 and to the United States in 1939. He took part in the Czernowitz language
conference (August 1908). He was one of
the leaders in the struggle for state recognition of Yiddish in the popular
press in 1910 in Bukovina and Galicia (at that time, in Austria). In his early youth he was already a Labor
Zionist, later a member of the central committee of the party. Together with B. Loker and Z. Rubashov (Zalman
Shazar), he ran the Labor Zionist office in Vienna. In 1936 he participated in the founding conference
of the World Jewish Congress in the United States. In 1907 he began publishing in the Labor
Zionist organ, Der yudisher arbayter
(The Jewish worker) in Lemberg. From
1909, he was publishing work in Geverkshaft
problemen (Union issues) and in the German Jewish Wochenblatt (Weekly newspaper) of Dr. Nosn Birnboym(Nathan Birnbaum) and Die Freistatt (The free state) in
Vienna. He later revived Der yudisher arbayter in Vienna. In America he placed work in Der idisher kemfer (The Jewish fighter)
in New York. He also contributed to a
volume by Nekhemye Robinzon (Nehemiah Robinson), Dictionary of Jewish Public Affairs and Related Matters (New York:
World Jewish Congress, 1958). He died in
New York.

He
was born in Stanislav
(Stanislavov), eastern Galicia. He
graduated from the Stanislav high school and the University of Vienna; he also
studied theatrical arts. As a youth, he
was active in Hashomer Hatsair (Young guard).
He debuted in print in Polish with a collection of poems entitled Poezja
(Poetry) (Stanislavov, 1913), 98 pp. A
second collection of his poems, also in Polish, appeared in 1917. In 1920 a Viennese publisher brought a book
of his poems in German, and a few years later B. Kletskin Publishers published
his volume of poetry entitled Fun got un fun mentsh (Of God and man)
(Warsaw, 1926), 58 pp. In the 1930s he
contributed to the Lemberg magazine Tsusheyer (Contribution), and,
together with the directors Dovid Herman and Mark Arnshteyn, he founded the Goldfaden
Club in Stanislav, which staged plays from the Jewish and European
repertuare. In 1940-1941, under the
Soviet Russian authorities, he was the manager of the “People’s Art House” in Stanislav, and he was
awarded with an honorary diploma during the All-Soviet Theatrical
Festival. After WWII he was selected
several times to positions in the association of Polish writers, and he served
as secretary of the Yiddish Literary Association in Lodz, where (from 1955) he
led the Yiddish drama circle and was literary director of variety
programming. He published poems,
epigrams, fables, articles, and theater reviews in: Folks-shtime (Voice
of the people) and Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings) in Warsaw; and Yidishe
kultur (Jewish culture) in New York; among others. He also authored: Przy szabasowych
świecach (At the Sabbath candles) (1963); Głupcy z Głupska (Fools
from Glupsk), folklore (1962); Afn
berditshever mark (In the Berdichev market) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1966), 61
pp.; and other works in Polish. He also published Kain i Hewel (Cain and Abel) (Lodz, 1963), 54 pp.—a collection of
poems on biblical motifs and motifs of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. He was a regular contributor to Polish
newspapers and magazines. For a time he edited
a literary magazine in Polish entitled Mosty
(bridge), in which he published essays and translations from Yiddish
literature. He also translated poems
from Yiddish and Hebrew into Polish. For
his many-sided literary and cultural activities, he received in 1956 a
Mickiewicz Medal and in 1958 an award from the Ministry of Culture in
Poland. His work appeared in Salcia
Landmann’s German anthology Jiddisch, das
Abenteuer einer Sprache (Yiddish, the adventure of a language) (Olten,
1962). He also took part in a number of
cultural broadcasts over the radio in Lodz.
He died in Lodz.

Friday, 23 February 2018

He came from Russia, and after WWI
moved to Philadelphia where he was a private Hebrew teacher and a religious man.
He was the author of: Tsofnes paneakh
(Revealer of secrets), “this book uncovers new secrets of nature which will
bring about a revolution in astronomy” (Philadelphia, 1930), 64 pp., with a
preface by the author, in which he explains a bit about himself.

She was born in Shedlets (Siedlce),
Poland. She graduated from a municipal
school and attended evening Hebrew courses.
At age ten she began to learn a trade.
In 1916 she arrived in the United States, where she worked by day and
studied in the evenings. She debuted in
print with a poem “Bist far mir a vunder” (You’re a wonder to me) in Nay lebn (New life) in New York (1936),
and from that point her poetry appeared in: Morgn-frayhayt
(Morning freedom), Yidishe kultur
(Jewish culture), Yidish amerike
(Jewish America), and Zamlungen
(Anthologies)—in New York; Naye prese
(New press) in Paris; and Yidishe shriftn
(Yiddish writings) and Folks-shtime
(Voice of the people) in Warsaw. Her
poems were also published in the anthology Amerike
in yidishn vort (America in the Yiddish word) (New York, 1955). In book form: Nitsokhn (Triumph), poetry (New York: Khane Safran Book Committee,
1946), 128 pp.; Haynt (Today), poetry
(New York: IKUF, 1950), 144 pp.; Likhtike
shtromen, lider un poemes (Bright currents, poetry) (New York: IKUF, 1960),
190 pp.; Dos lebn ruft (Life calls)
(New York: IKUF, 1968), 190 pp. In
addition, Morgn-frayhayt published
her novels—Di tentserin (The female
dancer) (1952), Vivyen un ire fraynt
(Vivian and her friend) (1954), and Eltern
un kinder (Parents and children) (1971-1972)—and her memoir Ikh gedenk, fun mayne ershte zeks yor in
amerike (I remember, from my first six years in America). She also published stories and travel impressions. She kept a diary (1914-1916), published [in
Polish] in 2011 as: Dziennik Anny Kahan:
Siedlce, 1914-1916 (Anna Kahan’s journal: Siedlce, 1914-1916) (Siedlce: Stowarzyszenie Tutajteraz, 2011), 410 pp. She also wrote two dramas: Dos hekhste gezets (The highest law,
1932) and Dos fayer fun lebn (The
ardor of life, 1952). In 1957 she
settled in Miami Beach. In 1961 she
received an award for her song “Eybrehem linkoln” (Abraham Lincoln) in a
competition run by the Jewish music association in New York. In 1962 she visited the state of Israel,
Soviet Russia, and Poland. Her poems
were also republished in various newspapers and journals outside of the United
States. She also wrote in English: The Fireborn (New York: Vantage Press,
1963), 270 pp. Her poems in English translation
by A. Schmuller are included in her work Crossing
the Borderland: Poems, Prose Poems, and Poetical Translations (London,
1959) and in Three contemporary Poets:
Delina Margot-Parle, Aaron Schmuller, Grace Gilombardo Fox (New York,
1960). She was last living in Miami
Beach.

A Soviet writer and journalist, he
was born in Alt-Bikhov (Bychaw), Mohilev district, Byelorussia.His grandfather was a Torah scribe, and his
father, Yisroel-Ayzik, was a teacher of Tanakh and Talmud, but he was also a
bit of a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment and ran a modern Talmud
Torah.His mother ran a haberdashery
shop in the marketplace.At age four he
began studying Hebrew with his father, at age five Torah with Rashi’s
commentary with a teacher, and at age eight the Talmud.From early on he studied foreign languages
and was an assiduous self-learner, mastering Hebrew, Russian, German, and
English.In 1903 he attempted (with his
grandfather in Zhukhovtsy) to learned the family profession and become a
scribe.Under the influence of the Labor
Zionist (later, Bundist), Moyshe Notkin, in 1904 he turned to leather tanning,
but after several years he left due to poor health.He went on to work as a teacher in his father’s
Talmud Torah and later as an employee in an insurance business.Around 1903 he began writing poetry in
Hebrew.He debuted in print (using the
pen name “Martsius”) with a correspondence piece from Alt-Bikhov in Der nayer veg (The new path) in Vilna
(1903).Using the same pseudonym, he
went on to publish articles, translations, poems, and stories in a variety of
venues.He also used the pen names: Asa,
Ban-krot, and A Gabentshter.He also
published an article in the name of his deceased friend Khayim Starobinyets in Der shtern (The star) in Minsk-Vitebsk
in 1920.In 1913 he settled in Vilna and
worked for Vilner togblat (Vilna
daily newspaper), edited by Dan Kaplanovitsh, as a translator, proofreader, and
editorial board secretary.After the
Revolution, he lived in Vitebsk and worked in the culture and education
division of the local Jewish section and as secretary to the editorial board of
the weekly newspaper Der frayer arbeter
(The free worker), edited by Sh. Agurski, from 1918.In 1919 he assumed the same post for the
newspaper Der shtern.That same year he published “Briv fun vitebsk”
(Letters from Vitebsk) and stories in Komunistishe
velt (Communist world) in Moscow.He
published poems and stories in: Khvalyes
(Waves) in Vitebsk (1920); Kultur un
bildung (Culture and education) in Moscow; Der royter shtern (The red star) in Vitebsk (1921); the bulletin Kamf mitn kheyder (Struggle against the religious
elementary school) (twelve issues appeared in print in Vitebsk); and the
anthology Tsum ondeynken fun y. l. perets
(To the memory of Y. L. Perets) (Vitebsk, 1921); among others.In 1922 he became a member of the government’s
department of nationalities in Vitebsk and published a weekly bulletin, Yedies (News).With help from the department of nationalities,
he established in Vitebsk the first Yiddish-language court in the Soviet Union
and served as its secretary.He
described the work of this court in an article, “Der ershter folks-gerikht af
yidish” (The first people’s court in Yiddish), in Arbeter-kalendar af 1924tn yor (Labor calendar for the year 1924),
published in Moscow in 1923.That same
year he moved to Moscow and served as editorial secretary for the newspaper Der emes (The truth).He was also active as a translator.Two of his translations were published in
1931: S. Tretiakov, Den shi khuas matone
(Deng Xihua’s gift [original: Den Shi
Khua]) (Moscow: Central Publ.), 56 pp.; and P. Smidovitsh, Di arbeter-masn in di 90er yorn, zikhroynes
fun an altn bolshevik (The laboring masses in the 1890s, memoirs of an old
Bolshevik) (Moscow: Der emes), 63 pp.His name disappeared in the early 1930s and then reappeared in 1957—his
memoirs appeared in the Warsaw newspaper Folks-shtime
(Voice of the people).

Thursday, 22 February 2018

She hailed from Odessa. As Y. Dobrushin recounts, this Odessan woman
of the people (already over sixty years of age) began writing about her
experiences during the evacuation from Odessa to Uzbekistan in Soviet Central
Asia. “The steamer, may it rest in
peace, and Yiddish prayers from my old grandmother”—thus she began one of her
rhymed stories about a ship packed with evacuees on the Black Sea, which was bombed
by German airplanes. In another rhymed
chapter, she recounts: “When Hitler came to power, night fell on
Czechoslovakia. It became dark—a lament,
and shorter was the day. Black clouds
swarmed over the sky, the wind gave its word that it would make the storm
clouds move from their place, and the sun would rise again.” She also narrated the story of her husband,
the sixty-year-old partisan who stayed with the other fighters in the Odessa
catacombs, and the Germans seized him and hanged him with his sister who was a
writer. “As for every folk creator,”
wrote Y. Dobrushin, “there sprang up in her the poetic word, and soon
side-by-side it was with a melody…. In
her songs she is more a storyteller. She
thus needs a means of innovative, folkish trope, which attends to every word
and line and construes and explains and underscores the sorrow and the joy of
an awakened folk soul.”

He was born in Chernobyl, Kiev
district, Ukraine. He attended religious
elementary school. In 1913 he moved to
Kiev, worked in a beer brewery, and prepared to enter secondary school. In 1915 he moved to Ekaterinoslav and worked
there with a locksmith. After the
February Revolution of 1917, he studied at the Kiev people’s university. He was manager of the division of
extra-curricular education and library use.
He attended the pedagogical course of study in Kiev, and after
graduating he became the administrator of a Jewish trade school and an evening
school in Kiev. In 1924 he graduated
from the medical teaching faculty of the Institute of People’s Education and
was hired as an assistant in the psychopathology department in the All-Ukrainian
Institute of Hygiene. From 1927 he was
secretary of the pedagogical office of the Jewish section in Kiev, where he was
in charge of translating textbooks for Jewish schools. In 1930 he moved to scholarly work at the
Kiev Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture and turned his attention of
psychological methods and experimental pedagogy. Together with Zingerman, Faynerman, Kruglyak,
and Ravinski, he compiled Lenins ruf,
lernbukh far veynik-ivredike (Lenin’s call, textbook for the few Yiddish
speakers) (Kiev: All-Ukrainian Committee to Eliminate Illiteracy, 1926), 227
pp.—Safyan wrote for this textbook: “Anatomye un fizyalogye fun mentsh”
(Anatomy and physiology or man). Two of
his writings—“Tsu der frage vegn ratsyonalizirn di limudim-reshime in eltern
kontsentr” (On the issue of rationalizing the list of subjects in the higher
stage of second education) and “Vegn tsveyt-yorikeyt in shul” (On the second
year in school)—were published in the Y. Reznik’s collection Di lernarbet in shul, zamlung (The work
of teaching in school, anthology) (Kharkov-Kiev: Pedagogy Section, Ukrainian
Academy of Science, 1933), 212 pp. Together
with Reznik and Ester Shnayderman, he collaborated on the work Heymfargebungen (Homework), issues from experience
in school (Minsk: Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture, 1935), 109 pp. Safyan published a project of a text to
measure the literacy level of readers in Ratnbildung
(Soviet education) and a project to gauge intellectual accomplishments in Spivavtor (Co-author) in Ukrainian in
1943. In 1935 he was signed to publish
by the Ukrainian Labor Institute a booklet on “job profiles for locksmiths,
turners, blacksmiths, and coppersmiths.”
Safyan disappeared in the 1930s during the liquidation of Yiddish
writers and cultural leaders in the Soviet Union.

He was born in Vilkovishki (Vilkaviškis),
Lithuania. He studied in religious
elementary schools and later graduated from a middle school in Kovno and the
technical college at the University of Manchester (England). He went on to work as a textile chemist in
Manchester, Lodz, and Moscow. In 1922 he
moved from Russia to Germany, and from there to France, and in 1941 he arrived
in the United States. He was active in socio-political
affairs of the Zionist socialist workers’ party, the Zionist socialist party,
and the Bund. In America he was involved
with the Russian Social-Democratic Party (Mensheviks), Erlikh-Alter branch 313 of
Workmen’s Circle, and the Algemeyne
entsiklopedye (General encyclopedia) in Yiddish. He wrote for Russian- and English-language
journals on technical issues. He first
began writing in Yiddish in America and in 1947 debuted with a poem in Der amerikaner (The American) in New
York. In book form, he published: Shtile vegn, lider (Quiet lanes, poems)
(Paris, 1953), 128 pp.; Shtimungen, lider
(Moods, poems) (New York, 1958), 102 pp.; Siluetn,
lider (Silhouettes, poems) (New York, 1963), 88 pp. He died in New York.

“In each poem,” wrote Shmuel Niger, “one
feels a lyrical tone and something of a natural musicality.” “To the thoroughly straightforward poets,”
noted Y. Varshavski, “belongs Y. Sapiro.
One can say of his book Shtile
vegn that it lives up to his name. When
readers will tire of all poetic revivals, perhaps one may return to this sort
of simplicity.” As Yankev Glatshteyn put
it, “in the poems there is a truthfulness.
Even a certain dexterity and a fine tone. Everywhere one sees Yankev Sapiro’s refined,
nostalgic approach.”